My favorite independent bookstore

Tell us about your local bookstore.

Is it an independent bookstore?  Or not?  An independent bookstore (also known as an indie bookseller) is a bookstore that is not controlled by a larger bookseller chain.  I have two bookstores nearby, both within walking distance, but they are chain stores:  Half-Price Books is a block north, and Barnes & Noble is a couple of blocks south.  The indie bookstore I loved the most closed down in 2006.

Book Buddies is my own personal favorite indie bookstore, even though it lasted only two years.  Donna and I opened it in late 2004 — and named it for our book friends all over the world who had been discussing Oprah's books online.  This little sign was beside our back door to the parking lot.  Support independent bookstores, or they cannot survive.

Independent Bookstore Day ~ and a book

"Independent Bookstore Day is a one-day national party that takes place at indie bookstores across the country on the last Saturday in April.  Every store is unique and independent, and every party is different.  In addition to a day full of activities (and a few surprises!), there are exclusive books and literary items that you can only get on that day.  Not before.  Not after.  Not online.  Independent bookstores are not just stores, they’re community centers and local anchors run by passionate readers.  They are entire universes of ideas that contain the possibility of real serendipity.  They are lively performance spaces and quiet places where aimless perusal is a day well spent."

I found those words on Facebook from The Novel Neighbor, located at 7905 Big Bend Blvd in St. Louis.  Just this week, I bought a book about bookstores because I was looking back at what I'd written about Jen Campbell a few years ago.  This is a newer book she wrote.  My "bookstores" in the USA are her "bookshops" in the UK.

The Bookshop Book ~ by Jen Campbell, 2014

We're not talking about rooms that are just full of books.  We're talking about bookshops in barns, disused factories, converted churches and underground car parks.  Bookshops on boats, on buses, and in old run-down train stations.  Fold-out bookshops, undercover bookshops, this-is-the-best-place-I've-ever-been-to-bookshops.  Meet Sarah and her Book Barge sailing across the sea to France; meet Sebastien, in Mongolia, who sells books to herders of the Altai mountains; meet the bookshop in Canada that's invented the world's first antiquarian book vending machine.  And that's just the beginning.  From the oldest bookshop in the world, to the smallest you could imagine, Jen Campbell examines the history of books, talks to authors about their favorite places, and looks at over three hundred weirdly wonderful bookshops across six continents (sadly, we've yet to build a bookshop down at the South Pole).  This book is a love letter to bookshops all around the world.

I had fun reading this excellent book and rate it 9 of 10, one to be enjoyed by people who love bookshops (or bookstores).  Here's the author's web site, where you can link up with her podcasts and read about her other books.

Donna and Bonnie, 2015

By the way, have I ever told you that my friend Donna and I opened an independent bookstore in 2004?  We named it Book Buddies for our group of friends who discussed books online.  This photo of the two of us is in the little library here at the Crown Center for Senior Living, where we sort donations and shelve books these days.